


let's stop before it gets messy

by agrestenoir



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alcohol, Alya/Nino - Freeform, Drunken Shenanigans, F/M, Identity Issues, Light Angst, Luka/Marinette, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 10:05:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16741966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agrestenoir/pseuds/agrestenoir
Summary: Her phone buzzes in her hand, startling her.Alya:Why did you change your relationship status on Facebook to married?Marinette wants to know the answer to that question as well, thank you very much.(You'd think the ring on her finger and the mystery man in her bed would be answer enough, but she would like to request permission to live in denial just a little while longer.)





	let's stop before it gets messy

Marinette can’t remember the last time she felt so comfortable. 

Humming in appreciation, she snuggles deeper into the warm nest of covers, content to simply lay in bed for a little while longer. If it wasn’t for the throbbing in her head, this morning would be perfect. It’s written in the softness of the downy comforter. The springs of the mattress. The smell of fruity shampoo lingering in the fabric of her pillow. Everything—from simple scents to the cotton cloud wrapped around her—speaks of perfection.

Her body is heavy and happy, and while she just wants to lay in bed and enjoy her first Saturday in what feels like forever, she knows she has work to do. There’s still all those sketches for the spring haul at Gabriel’s and the last few swatches to pick out for the Stellano Jacket commission. A soft groan slips from her lips as she presses up on trembling elbows, burying her face into her pillow, and tries to pretend she doesn’t exist. 

“Tikki,” she calls out to her kwami, words slurring slightly. “What time’ issit?” 

The kwami doesn’t respond; however, something else does. Someone shifts in the bed, turning over onto their side with a muffled moan, and presses a cold foot into the back of Marinette’s calf, chasing her retreating heat. Marinette freezes, eyes snapping open, and the lull of sleep quickly evaporates. 

Her morning haze and confusion fades, and she becomes aware of the sights, sensations, and sounds that she’d initially missed. The first thing she recognizes is that this is most definitely _not_ her apartment, and that she doesn’t know how she got here. Come to think of it (and the horror hits her hard and fast), she doesn’t remember what happened last night _at all_. 

And then there’s _him_. 

An arm is strewn across her ( _naked_ , very much naked) waist, fingers tracing light patterns into the smooth skin of her stomach. Hot puffs of air tickled the back of her neck from the person’s heavy breathing, murmuring nonsense in the space between Marinette’s head and the pillow. Her mind is working in overdrive. There’s someone in her bed, someone she has no memory of inviting in, and she’s in someone else’s apartment with no clue how she got here…

Marinette closes her eyes with a gasp, trying to remember what happened last night.

Usually when there’s nights she can’t remember, it’s Alya’s fault, so honestly calling her best friend is probably her best bet right now. With the utmost care, she wiggles out from stranger’s loose embrace, pulling the sheets with her as she pushes herself to her feet. Marinette turns back to look at the man still asleep on the bed, which tells an entirely different story because he is fucking _gorgeous_ with long limbs and tanned skin and toned-to-the- _fucking_ -nines. He’s blonde and beautiful and could basically be a model.

She bets his face is gorgeous too, if he didn’t currently have it buried in a pillow.

Marinette gulps. Dear _god,_ what did she get herself into?!

This whole situation is incredibly insane because Marinette doesn’t _do_ this. Things like this just don’t happen to people like her.

Yet here she’s found herself, in bed with a pretty boy and his strange apartment with no memory of how she got here.

“Oh fuck, what happened?” she asks herself, running a hand through her hair in panic, but that’s when something tangles in her bangs. 

She works to pull her hand free from her hair, and in doing so, catches sight of the silver wedding ring on her left hand. 

“Oh fuck,” Marinette says again. “What the fuck did I _do?_ ”

  

* 

 

“Come on, Mari,” Alya says from her seat in a booth at a bar the night before. “You have to get over yourself.” 

“I’m going to be alone forever.” Marinette’s confession is whispered between sips of English gin and lime, the words as bitter as the taste that burns her throat. “No one will ever love me.” 

Alya looks on in sympathy, still unwilling to join Marinette’s pity party, and it’s not like she can’t exactly _blame_ her. Alya’s currently engaged to the boy she’s loved since she was fourteen while Marinette’s just ended a relationship with Luka, who was probably the best thing to happen to her in a long time—especially after Adrien. The break-up happened three weeks ago, but the sting’s more than enough to push her to the local club a few blocks from her apartment—full of flashing lights, neon body paint, greasy food, and lots of alcohol—in efforts to forget about the hardships that love brings and all that fucking romance jazz. 

“You’re not gonna be alone forever.” Alya says, taking a few French fries from their shared basket. She munches on them, chewing over Marinette’s words. “I think you just need a few weeks of casual stuff. You know, a chance to have fun and get back out there.” 

Marinette scoffs into her drink, shaking her head. “I don’t need to go out and have sex. My dildo’s doing fine for right now, thanks.” 

“Casual dating can be a good option too. We can help set you up with some people if you want.” Alya gestures to herself and the other girls who’d come out with them that evening—Alix and Mylene, who were doing a round of shots, and Juleka and Rose, who were currently pressed in the corner of their shared booth and hadn’t come up for air in… quite some time actually. 

“It’s not worth it,” Marinette says and raises her drink to her lips, ready to drown her sorrows once more, when a hand reaches across the table and snatches it from her.

“You’ve been off the market for over a year,” Alya interjects, tossing the rest of it back in one gulp. “You’ve got a lot of catching up to do.” 

“Maybe I don’t wanna date anyone else.” Wasn’t the latest stint with Luka more than enough to show that her dating game isn’t strong enough to survive another attempt? After the shit show she went through with Adrien Agreste too… isn’t it time enough to quit?

Her friend starts laughing, but it’s not the mocking, piteous sound that Marinette has been expecting. It’s softer, full of sympathy. “Honestly, Marinette, it sounds like that’s _just_ what you need. Luka really fucked things up when he left, didn’t he?” 

“At least he was good at something,” she mumbles in reply. “It’s just karma though ‘cause I’m pretty sure this is just how Adrien felt.”

Her friend’s expression softens. “Marinette…”

 Marinette buries her face in her hands as she tries to block everything out. “I just don’t wanna do something stupid again—or someone, for that matter.” 

Alya simply smiles and raises her hand to signal their waiter for more drinks. “Don’t worry, Marinette. I promise that I won’t let you do anything stupid tonight.”

 

 

* 

 

Marinette stares and blinks. She stares and blinks _hard_.

The ring does not disappear, her maybe-husband on the bed snores louder, and the heart-stopping reality crashes over her. Then with a loud gasp, she topples over and bangs into the wall beside the bed, one hand fumbling to hold the sheet around her while the other reaches for her phone on the bedside table. 

There’s a disjoint in the snores from the man on the bed before they taper off all-together. A moment of silence settles over the bedroom, and Marinette can hear her pulse in her ears. With a moan, the man stretches out in a star-fish style on the bed, nestling deeper into the place Marinette had just vacated. 

“You okay?” comes his hoarse, sleep-tinged voice. It turns her insides squirmy, like butterflies. “Thought I heard you fall outta bed?” 

“S-Something like that,” Marinette squeaks out, and the man simply flashes her a thumbs-up but doesn’t say anything else. 

Confident in her need to getaway, Marinette rolls towards the bedroom door in a burrito of sheets, desperate for a bathroom or hallway or living room where she can thoroughly and properly panic. Phone clasped tightly in one hand, she fumbles for the door knob and steps out into a brightly-lit hall, shutting the door shut softly behind her, desperately hoping that the man doesn’t follow her. 

Looking at the ring on her finger again, Marinette decides that she can only handle one life-changing concept at once. 

There’s one text from Alya, sent just after two that morning: _Hope you got home safely!_  

Desperate to retrace her steps, Marinette reads through her text history, finding the story that sets up just how she expected it. It’s the “ _we’re going out and you have no choice_ ” text that started it out just after six the night before, followed closely by “ _Nino called and I have to bail early! Enjoy the rest of the night with the gang though! Don’t get too crazy!”_ and then the closing kicker of “ _Mylene told me you found a blonde! Have fun, tiger!!_ ”

Marinette herself had texted Alya only once after this: _You’re invited to our wedding!_  

“Oh my god,” Marinette murmurs, staring at her phone in horror, and just as if cued by the same deity that allowed her to get into this mess, it buzzes with a new incoming message. 

Alya: _Why did you change your relationship status on Facebook to married?_

Marinette would like to know the answer to that question as well, thank you very much. 

(You’d think the ring on her finger and the mystery man in her bed would be answer enough, but she would like to request permission to live in denial just a little while longer.)

 

*

 

It’s nearly ten that evening when Marinette finally leaves the booth for the first time that night to wander around the club as Alya goes to get more drinks. 

Meandering through the bustling club is a bit hard when she’s tipsy and still has a glass of something tequila-derived clenched in her hand, but she still manages. As much as she despises Alya dragging her out here on a Friday night, she has to admit that her best friend had a good point. Marinette desperately needed this, a place she could disappear to when the adrenaline is high and the exhaustion lingers—a common cold that alcohol and crowds can cure. 

It’s easy to lose herself in something that’s physical: the warm press of dancing bodies against hers, the heavy hands of a stranger on her hip, the bass drumming in time with her own heart. Finding a boy with glittering eyes and a pretty smile is frankly all she wants now that Alya pointed her in that direction.

And it’s in the middle of the crowd that she wades into to lose herself, that she finds the one person she’s trying to forget. 

It’s Luka because _of fucking course_ it’s Luka. Marinette’s never been a creature of good luck, even as Lady Luck incarnate, so it’s no surprise that of all places in Paris to have a night out, Luka picks the one place she went to get over him.

The man of the hour— _Luka_ —looks to be having a grand ‘ole damn time. He’s on the dance floor with some faceless brunette, sweaty and grinning, look thoroughly _happy_ , and it… God, there’s not enough alcohol to help her right now. 

Marinette tosses her tequila drink back in a flash and turns back to the table for more.

She needs something strong—something to make her forget today, tomorrow, and maybe the last eighteen months completely. Something to make her _regret_. 

(And _GOD_ does Alya deliver.)

 

*

  

Marinette is still wrapped in sheets, and it just occurs to her that the blinds on the glass doors leading to the apartment’s balcony are wide open.

With a squeal, she drops her phone and runs to draw the curtains close, giving her some form of privacy in an otherwise eye-opening world. In her rush, she trips over the makeshift robe and goes crashing onto the plush carpet, sprawled out across the coffee table, couch, and TV remote.

 

Marinette Dupain-Cheng: 0                 Maybe-Husband’s Apartment: 2

 

There’s a soft laugh from behind her, and Marinette clenches her eyes close, too afraid to face reality for the nth time this morning. “Are you okay?” the man from the bed asks her again. 

There’s a scuffle of footsteps behind her, bare feet dragging against carpet as her maybe-husband ambles into the living space. A shadow looms over where she’s fallen as he kneels down beside her, leaning back on his haunches, and puts a strong hand on her shoulder to check her over. 

“That looked like a hard fall.”

“Trust me, not the only thing that knocked me on my ass this morning,” she tells him and pushes herself up on trembling hands and knees, one hand still clutching that sheet close to her chest. Even though they’ve… probably already seen everything that the other has to offer, Marinette doesn’t remember it and ergo it hasn’t _happened yet_. 

(She’s only let two people in her life see her in such an intimate way before: one she was supposed to marry, and the other left her. She isn’t ready for another.) 

Hands wrap around her and help up, and Marinette just goes with the flow. It isn’t until she’s seated on his leather couch and staring at the ground that she gives him her attention, hears his tired sigh and feels the warm weight as he sits down next to her. 

“Glad to see some things never change with you, Marinette,” he tells her.

The words strike something raw in her chest, causes her heart to give out a pathetic _pang_ that does more harm than good. The familiarity he uses with her, the way her name rolls off his tongue, the sound of his voice… 

Marinette looks up and fixes her husband with a panicked and horrified gaze and says, “Hi.” 

And Adrien Agreste can only look back with that soft smile that breaks her every time she sees it and say back, “Hi, Mari.”

  

*

 

Somewhere along the lines, Marinette decides that a Mai Tai is exactly what she needs right now to get through the rest of the night. 

Pushing herself out of a conversation with Mylene, she murmurs a short apology and heads to the bar, sidestepping and cha-chaing her way to the only vacant bar stool in the whole club. 

That’s when she finally sees _him_. 

Underneath the neon sign over the bar area, a young man sits like a radiant god. His flawless skin glows in the soft blue light of the sign, a form-fitting blazer stretched across toned shoulders, and a pair of denim jeans that do wonders for his ass. Messy blonde hair falls into his face, green eyes possibly glowing, and full pink lips that smile easy. 

The man is a mirage Marinette has stumbled upon, and the sight of him is like the water she needs to sober up. 

God, he’s… gorgeous— _fucking Adonis._

“Has anyone ever told you that you look like Michelangelo’s _David_?” she asks him as she slips onto the bar stool next to him.

The man laughs at her comment, still looking at the phone in his hands as he closes out of whatever he was doing. (To be honest, it looked like _Candy Crush_ , and Marinette decides she loves him right then and there.)

“Well, that’s not one I hear often.” He finally turns to look at her. “And you look like a…” His voice trails off as he stares at her for a short moment, eyes widening with disbelief. “…Marinette?” 

“Wow!” she gasps out, slapping the table top of the bar in surprise. “Oh my god, I _am_ Marinette! Are you psychic? Do you have magic?” She leans into his space and pauses, hot breath tickling the shell of his ear. “I have magic too, but I can’t tell anyone.” 

“Oh really?” he says dumbly, voice high like a wrecking ball has slammed into his chest and he’s having trouble breathing. “T-That’s interesting.”

“It is,” Marinette agrees and waves a bartender down to order a Mai Tai. The man beside her remain silent and awestruck like he’s never seen someone like her before. It makes her cheeks burn, and she hopes he doesn’t notice. 

“You’re drunk, aren’t you?” he asks her after a short moment. 

“Not enough,” she retorts. 

“Enough to matter though, right?” he counters, and a smile tugs at the corners of Marinette’s lips. 

“Nope,” she says and turns in her seat to the crowd behind them. “My ex, Luka, is out there, and I’m trying to forget him. If I can still remember I saw him, then obviously it’s not enough.” 

“Bad break-up?” he asks, perplexed. 

Marinette shrugs noncommittally. “He thought I was too hung up on this guy I dated three years ago and decided to cut his ties while he still could.” The man ducks his head with a bitter smile, and her heart lurches into her throat at the sight. She doesn’t know why it bothers her so much. 

“Did you love him?” the man asks her softly. 

“I mean, it hurts to lose him, I guess,” she admits. “But it’s not like he’s wrong.” 

The man chokes on his Long Island Iced Tea. “I’m sorry?” His gaze is turgid, interest piqued. 

“I was gonna marry this other guy, you know.” She stares at the glass in his hand. “But I was stupid and chose not to because I…” Shaking her head, she lets a bitter laugh fall from her lips. “I guess you could say I had an identity crisis.” 

“…I’m sorry.”

 “What for?” Marinette quirks an eyebrow as she studies the blonde beside her. “Hey… did anyone ever tell you look a lot like Adrien Agreste?” 

The man holds her eyes for a few moments before crumbling in on himself, dissolving into soft chuckles. “That one I _do_ get a lot.” The bartender returns with her Mai Tai, and the man flashes her a wry grin and puts a bill on the table to cover her. “Hey, you picked the best drink for the job at least.”

“Why’s that?” 

Lips pressed into a thin line, the man levels her with a heavy stare. “Haven’t you ever heard of _hakuna ma’maitai._ ” 

“What’s that mean?”

The man leans closer, eyes flashing wildly. “It means no memories for the rest of your night.”

The pun rings heavy through her head, and she can only nod and take a sip of the Mai Tai at his urging, readying herself for a night she’ll soon forget. 

Too bad it worked.

 

*

 

"Nice place. When you'd move here?" 

"Thanks. And two months ago." 

Sitting back on that couch, still wrapped like a sushi roll in his stupid blue sheets, Marinette turns to him and asks, "What happened last night?"

He chokes on air. “You don’t remember?”

“If it helps, I don’t remember a lot of things,” Marinette supplies and lets her gaze skitter to the still-open window. Silver sunlight of the early morning streams into the living room, a sea of blue painting the sky and reflecting off the glass of the coffee table she’d almost cracked her head open on. “Last thing I remember is getting a drink with Alya at the club by my apartment.”

“Oh you got that drink alright,” Adrien snips, a warm smile stretching across his face as he leans back, head lolling over the edge of the couch. “And more.” 

“And then I married you.” Marinette presses her lips into a thin line as she turns back to face him. 

He tilts his head towards her, staring at her with that same intense look. “And then you married me.”

 

 

*

 

“So how long were you and Luka together?” the blonde asks her. 

Marinette simply shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says, drawing circles around the rim of her glass with the tip of her sticky finger as she ponders the question. “Maybe eighteen months give or take? It feels like we were apart more than we were together.” 

Though she tries not to, she finds herself drifting back to her time with Luka, a spot of vibrance between her bleak and dreary few years post-Adrien Agreste, but one she finds herself going back to more often now. She’d met Luka at a time in her life when chaos bled from an open wound she was still desperately trying to stitch shut. It’d been nine months since she’d walked away from Adrien, leaving her engagement ring on his nightstand and no note goodbye. 

In the beginning, Luka had been sweet, and Marinette was smitten. They fell into bed faster than they fell in love, which was an encompassing period of trial and error but one she was committed to. Their relationship was a shaky time when she needed support and stability, and Luka gave her all that and more. 

Too bad it didn’t last.

“Was he good for you?” the blonde asks. 

“Why do you care so much?” she snaps back, quirking an eyebrow high. 

The man doesn’t respond, only turning back to his drink, but Marinette knows more than enough to draw what answers she needs. _He’s hurting_ , she thinks to herself. 

It’s in the way he talks, from the secrets of a past he hasn’t come to terms with yet and won’t fully divulge to a stranger he met at a bar. It’s in the way his eyes shutter when the alcohol slips Marinette’s closely-held confessions off her tongue and into open air. She knows the look of someone who’s lost. It’s the reflection she sees in the mirror every morning when she wakes up. 

He talks like a man who’s still searching. 

“Come on, let’s dance,” Marinette tells him, finishing off her Mai Tai with one last gulp, the sour taste sparking new life within her. And with a bout of strength, she pushes herself to her feet which… makes her _really fucking dizzy_ , and grabs his hand to pull him from the barstool and onto the dance floor. 

The man follows her without regard, like it’s something he’s spent his whole life doing. 

Maybe he has.

Either way, it’s not like she can tell. Marinette’s too far gone to notice.

  

*

 

Marinette plays with the ends of her hair, still staring at Adrien with a skeptical expression. “Did I even know you were… _you_ last night?”

 Adrien smiles. “Maybe not at first, but then I told you.” 

“You must’ve found me after Alya left,” she says, brushing her bangs away to look at him better. “Otherwise she would’ve never let me get close to you again.” Sighing, she leans forward and rests her chin atop her knees. “I can’t believe I went with you anyway.” 

“You actually came up to me,” he says with a smile, nudging her side with his elbow. “I think you just zeroed in on a target and went in for the kill to be honest.” 

“I do have a one-track mind when I’m drunk.” 

“Don’t I know it.”

Marinette sucks on her bottom lip as a thought suddenly comes to her. “So why’d you go with me then? Were you drunk too?” 

“Enough that it mattered, I guess, but…” He shrugs helplessly before fixing her with an intense gaze. “I really, _really_ missed you, Marinette. It wasn’t exactly a hard choice.” 

As much as she wants to pretend she doesn’t understand, Marinette knows she does. Letting go of Adrien was the hardest thing she’d ever done, and being alone was never something she was comfortable with. It’s probably why she fell in with Luka so easily and why she sought Adrien out at that club last night. 

“I missed you too,” she murmurs lowly, eyes suddenly burning uncomfortably. “I don’t know if that matters, but…” 

Adrien purses his lips in a thin line. “It does… more than you think it does.” 

With shaky hands, she reaches over and tangles her fingers with his, clenching them hard and tight, as if to tell him that she’s here and she’s not leaving anytime soon. “I’m glad.” 

“…Yeah?” he asks softly. 

She smiles. “Yeah.” 

 

*

  

Marinette can’t stop laughing, and her chest grows warm, lungs full. “So you never told me your story,” she says, wrapping her arms around the blonde’s neck. “You know mine, but I know _nothing_ about yours.” 

He flashes her a small smile, but it’s obvious her question caught him off guard. “I thought this was your night to cut loose?” 

“Turnabout is fair play,” she tells him, eyes twinkling under the flashing lights of the club. “And you’ve been so kind to listen to me whine about my stupid ex. So come on, lemme take a turn.” 

“What do you wanna know then?” he asks and pulls her closer to him until there’s not even a hair’s breadth between them. She can feel his heart thundering against hers, and it takes her breath away. “My life story or my sob story?”

“Oh? Who did you wrong?” 

“No one exactly, or…” He stares at her for a moment with an undiscernible expression. Those green eyes swim with an emotion that she can’t place. It’s not pity or understanding, but rather like he just found something he’d spent a long time looking for. “I guess it was both of us. We weren’t honest about who we were, and in the end… I think we were just confused about the people we fell in love with.”

“Were you happy?”

“Very. We loved each other.” His eyes are fire, and she is not equipped with the proper safety equipment to handle him. 

“Do you still love her?” she asks before she has a chance to process the question. It just falls from her tongue with the ease that comes with just the right amount of alcohol. 

He huffs softly and leans closer. “Do you still love the person _you_ were supposed to marry?” 

She takes a while to respond, just letting her hips move to the beat. The music is drumming in tune with her heart, echoing in her head and chest, until Marinette feels like she might burst from it all. Is this how it feels, she wonders, staring at the man in front of her with flushed cheeks and wide eyes, who makes her dance freely and laughs easily? Is this what it’s like to let yourself go—to let yourself _live_ —without the past dragging you down? 

For so long, Marinette’s been trying to go through the motions of life like it’s a clinical application she needs a textbook approach for, but with Luka gone and on her again for the first time since Adrien, she’s learning otherwise. With this stranger, she grants herself the luxury of enjoying the inevitable and ineffable, of taking a second to breathe and live in the moment, instead of running away from the things she doesn’t understand and is too scared to fall for. 

It makes things messy and chaotic, which honestly could just be the fucking alcohol, but it’s something she desperately needed. 

 _Does she still love Adrien?_  

If someone had asked her that months ago, she would have denied it vehemently, but now… Luka’s gone, and it’s time she faces the real reasons he walked away, and the real reasons she walked away from Adrien: Adrien is Chat Noir, and she still loves him. 

“I never stopped,” she finally tells the blonde. 

The man in her arms smiles, and it’s a genuine one. Her heart sparks in response.

She loses herself before she even has a chance to realize it.

  

*

  

“But you let us get _married_?” 

Adrien wraps an arm around her shoulder and pulls her close, body shaking with stifled laughter. “Okay, first off, you weren’t the only one drinking last night.” Marinette willingly settles against him. “And second, it was actually your idea, and since when have I ever been able to argue with you?” 

“Touché,” she acknowledges. 

“And besides,” he says, rubbing his eyes with a soft sigh. “It wasn’t too long ago that we were gonna get married anyway.” 

There’s a beat of silence. “That was three years ago.” 

“Still feels like yesterday.” 

Marinette lets her gaze fall to her hand intertwined with Adrien’s—at the silver ring on her finger—the sight so achingly familiar that it leaves her sore and tired but also insanely _happy_. “You kept the ring?”

“Of course,” he tells her. “It’s yours.” 

“But I left you,” she tries to say, but he stops her with a soft hand against her chest.

 “Marinette,” he says. “Do you actually think I could ever really let you go?”

 

*

  

Marinette is drunk. 

(Honestly, she was probably drunk a couple hours ago, but she’s stopped caring at this point.) Regardless, she’s very drunk and holding hands with the pretty boy she met at the bar and can’t remember the last time she was this happy. 

“We need to get you home,” the blonde says and takes her by the waist, leading her through the crowd at the club and towards the exit. 

“Why? I’m not drunk,” she tells him, very drunk.

“Sure, Marinette.” 

A sudden thought hits her. “How’d you know that was my name anyway?”

 The man stutters to a stop beside her. “Of all the things you’ve forgot tonight,” he says with an incredulous stare. “That’s the _one thing_ you actually remember?” 

“I’m drunk,” she says in defense. 

He stares at her. Blinks hard. 

A cool wind breezes by, and she shivers in his arms. The man unconsciously pulls her closer to keep her warm, causing her poor heart to sing. “You remind me of Adrien,” she tells him suddenly. “He always makes sure I’m okay.” 

“Maybe because I _am_ Adrien.” 

There’s a short beat of silence as her thoughts try to make sense of his words, but like usual, her mouth and heart jumpstart into overdrive. “Marry me then.”

 He quirks an eyebrow. “Excuse me?” 

“Marry me then,” she says again. “If you’re actually Adrien Agreste, then you should marry me.” If she’s coherent enough, Marinette knows for a fact that there’s an all-night wedding chapel down the road from the club, next to the dive bar that Alya loves, and the sketchy hot dog café Luka had a fondness for. 

Hurried hands are pulling at her shoulders, spinning her around to face the blonde. “What the hell makes you think I’d do that?” His eyes are wide, imploring her to continue.

“Because I love Adrien Agreste,” she says. “Luka knows it, I know it, and now you do too. And if you’re Adrien, then that means he knows now.” She shuffles forward and rests her forehead against his collar bone, taking a deep breath in. “I wish I married him three years ago.”

 He looks at her for a moment, like he’s searching for answers to questions she doesn’t know. “Okay,” he finally tells her. “I’ll marry you.”

Marinette can’t stop the smile that breaks out across her face. “Awesome, dude.”

When they get to the chapel, there’s a few things that she becomes aware of that make her think that going out this Friday night was the best thing she could’ve done for herself:

1) the man has a ring that looks like her old engagement ring that makes her think _hmmm_

2) the man starts his vows with, “I, Adrien Agreste, take Marinette Dupain-Cheng…” that makes her think _fuck yes_

3) Adrien kisses her the same way he did three years ago, hard and full, that makes her think that he’s never going to let her go again.

  

*

   
“We have _so, so_ much to talk about,” she tells him when he leans over and presses a kiss to her cheek, giggling as his hair tickles her nose. 

Adrien hums in agreement as he pulls her into his lap, settling back into the couch, and Marinette rearranges the sheet to be wrapped around both of them. She lays her head in the crook of his neck, blue eyes blinking blearily as she stares out at the rising sun through the balcony windows. 

“Like how I’m Chat Noir, and you’re Ladybug?” The comment makes her squirm because it’s something she should’ve talked to him about three years ago instead of running away. 

“And Luka,” she says. 

There’s silence, and then he asks, “Are you happy you married me?” 

She sighs against him. “I’m sad I didn’t do it before.” It’s the truth because she’s loved this man for so long that she’s forgotten when she started, and marriage was just always intermingled somewhere in the middle. 

“Do you want to stay married?” 

She stays silent and tries to sort through her thoughts. Adrien lifts his head and noses his way back to her lips, pressing soft, lingering kisses there, until she’s warm and pliant against him. For a while, their thumbs stroke hip bones, lips trace jawlines, and breathes are warm and quiet in the space between them. 

“Marinette?” he asks again. 

“I just know I never wanna let you go again,” she tells him because… honestly… what else is there to say? 

She loves him, and in the end, that’s all that matters.

 

*

  

The phone buzzes, breaking the morning silence. 

“’ello?” 

“Girl, you coming to the annual hangover brunch?” It’s Alya. 

“Hmm, yeah.”

“Good. See ya in fifteen?”

“Mhmm, sounds good. Oh, and I’m bringing my husband.”

There’s a long pause.

“What?”

 

*

 

On _Yelp!_ , the latest review for Mix Club in Paris, France, reads:

 

            _Great place to spend a Friday night! Wonderful service, good cuisine, and amazing music. Stay away from the Mai Tais though—fucking dangerous._

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope y'all liked this little twist on the Married-In-Vegas AU trope thing. It's just a thing I've had in my head after watching Hallmark Christmas movies all weekend. 
> 
> Couple notes: I don't know if there's all-night wedding chapels in Paris, but for the sake of this story, there is. Also the reason Adrien and Marinette broke up is supposed to be kind of abstract, but the reason is mainly because she found out that he was Chat Noir and didn't know how to process it. Also the "hakuna ma'maitai" pun is like my favorite thing ever so you'll probs see it a lot in my works.
> 
> Any other comments, questions, concerns, general shit: feel free to come to me on tumblr @agrestenoir.


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